Somehow I sprained it; no idea how, but it has been a busy, day. The day was spent having breakfast at Bagels & Beans, packing, biking around Utrecht, taking the train to the airport, flying to Copenhagen, checking in to the hotel conveniently attached to the airport then exploring a bit of Copenhagen to find something for dinner. Wound up at McJoy’s Choice, billed as a Scottish/Irish pub…wait, is that ok? Maybe it’s just one or the other. Gotta be. I’ll check on my way out. Pretty sure any Scotsman or Irishman would consider a hybrid pub fighting words.

Anyway, places like this are fun and the playlist is mostly acceptable. So far Boys II Men (or some other nameless boy band), Bon Jovi, the Beatles, “Why do fools fall in love” (can’t recall the name of the band), and a medley of CCR has played. Love that I can hear “Stuck in Lodi Again”, when I’m so far from it. Also glad it’s a CCR medley, many of their songs are best in bits.

This is my last full day! I had the 29th stuck in my head as the day I was leaving, but that’s actually the day I get back! D’oh! My journey home tomorrow starts with a fight to Copenhagen where I’ll have a 12 hour layover; planned ahead, booked a room, might have an hour or two for Denmarkventuring.

So this being my last full day I implemented Plan A from yesterday. When I arrived I took too many of these and couldn’t decide which to post

I liked the photobombers, nice smiles.

Then I went to the Moco Museum for the Banksy exhibit. Here’s a few shots with limited commentary

Plan A was to travel back to Amsterdam, see the Banksy exhibit, buy some souvenirs then, get some dinner and check out the Amsterdam Light Festival; but first I was going to explore a bit locally because the sun came out.

As I was slipping on my shoes, however, a discussion arose as to what the rest of the house was going to do this afternoon. Someone mentioned a castle.

Plan B, short local exploration, then castle.

Like I said, the sun came out

Saw some fowl

Thought this looked better with some sun

Found this amusing, note to self- come back when it’s open

Not sure what this is but I liked it

Pancho Villa? Wyatt Earp?

Whichever, or whoever, he was facing Frank Zappa

Went to Kebap Factory and got some to go, returned to the house to eat and await departure for our castle adventure.

Entrance to Castle de Haar

Arch to courtyard

Courtyard, hey, just realized what courtyard means 🙂

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in the ticket office/gift shop (my students will appreciate it.)

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s seemingly random photos ahead.)

(I photograph what I like.)

Castle

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s my good side

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knocker

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ngle

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ly inappropes (for the 'Archer' fans)

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doors

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ndows

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re about bathtubs in the floor and creepy mannequins

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way back we stopped at Geertje's Hoeve, a working farm, pancake house and, um, family park? Where among other things I saw some cute critters.

Today was a good day to head to Amsterdam. Upon exiting central station I felt immediately at home; it was good to be back. I decided to lazily wander toward the Rijksmuseum taking in the sights…like a wrapped store

Then I noticed this

(Had a burst of creativity I suppose.)

This wasn’t what I was going for but it turned out alright

I continued meandering toward the Rijksmuseum from memory, which wasn’t the best, or the worst thing to do. It wasn’t the worst because I came upon this cool architectural detail

which made me think of fish sticks, and this frickin’ awesome tree!

It just screams, “I need a filter.” Not yet. Here’s the other side

Meandering made me hungry so I sought out Leidseplien to get some food and drink. I chose an outside table in the plaza at a cafe that indicated it served Heineken sat down, and waited. Then waited some more. People at the outdoor cafe to my left were wrapping up their meal. I waited some more. (For those of you unfamiliar, at the majority of the casual eating establishments here you enter, choose a seat and someone comes to take your order; eventually.)

While I was waiting another person came and sat at a table in the cafe to my right. Within moments someone came to take his order, he waved them away though as he was waiting for friends.

I waited some more. I’m patient to a fault.

As I waited the dudes, to my right, buddies arrived and sat. The server came to take their order, then waved them away as they were just going to hang out and chat but not order anything.

I waited a tick more then walked across the plaza to the Heineken pub where I enjoyed some kastangles, tomato soup, and a pint. Afterward the sun broke through and I headed toward the Rijksmuseum, as I was sure where it was relative to Leidseplein.

Found it

(It’s behind the I amsterdam incase you didn’t know. I didn’t go in though, it bored me to tears last time, I just wanted to see the stuff around it.)

Like this

Translation: Non urinate in the wind, a man of understanding. Very true.

And this

Truth be told I didn’t actually go looking for that, just saw it and thought it was cool. I also noticed one of the museums had a Banksy exhibit, but I’m saving that for another post.

Having satiated my desire to make it to the area near the Rijksmuseum I decided to head back to Amsterdam Centraal. Along the way, the following caught my attention

whatever that means.

Yes. A store that sells popular culture. Mostly Marvel stuff and a variety of cartoon paraphernalia.

Woke this morning after another night of deep sleep, weird dreams, punctuated by waking once or twice. Took a shower, got dressed, and either bent over wrong, stood up wrong, or whatever I did wrong pinched an old lower back injury. (Fell off a waterfall in Thailand over 20 years ago. It’s a good story but not as exciting as you might think; maybe I should embellish it sometime. But I digress.) As a result of said wrongness, I have spent a good portion of the day saying, “Ow.”

After showering, dressing, and wronging, my brother directed me here,

which he said was just up the street from the grocery store. It wasn’t. It was actually a few blocks up and several over plus the few wrong turns I made searching for it. Ow.

Had a delightful breakfast of coffee, OJ, and a bagel with cream cheese and strawberry jam. Then walked the correct way back to the house. Ow.

The return home is when I felt really jet lagged for the first time so thought it would be a good idea to go see this

because I didn’t want to nap and jeopardize my adjustment to local time, and I enjoy going to movies in other countries; when I’m in them, not like a regular vacation thing.

Ow.

In Taipei I saw “The Money Pit” that was in English and subtitled in Chinese, which made it both awkward and hilarious when I’d laugh several seconds before most of the Taiwanese audience.

Similarly in Spain I watched “There’s Something About Mary”, at an outdoor theater, which was dubbed in Spanish with English subtitles. The enjoyable bit that time was that the Spaniards in the audience didn’t get the hair gel joke, nor had any idea who Brett Favre was! (I’m assuming you’d get the joke and know him.) While in Thailand I saw a movie I don’t recall, maybe because of the waterfall incident, but I do remember the lights dimming, some music playing, and the audience standing in unison…for their national anthem.

Ow.

Back to this

I tried to use the ticket kiosks b/c even though they were in Dutch, (but not cahoots), I figured, “It’s just tickets, how hard could it be?”

After getting my ticket from the cashier I headed up the stairs toward theater #7. On the way I walked through the concession stand, which is really more of a convenience store kind of thing, grabbed my snax, paid, and walked to my movie.

Huge theater, comfy seats, and virtually no one else there. Awesome. Seriously, maybe 15 people. As expected there were a ton of commercials before the film, one of which had a scene with a couple, um, coupling, didn’t expect that.

Also unexpected was intermission. Seemingly out of nowhere the screen went dark. When it came back on, there was a 10 minute countdown timer. WTF?

Ow.

The movie was great, even though there were Dutch subtitles, though shifting in my seat periodically in an attempt to get comfortable was not great.

On the walk home I passed a gentleman playing Christmas music on an accordion, saw this

and wondered, What’s ‘tegen’ mean? It means “against”.

Arrived back at the house, succumbed to a nap, the movie excursion was over 3 hours, then woke in time to join my brother on a bike ride to Beers & Barrels for dinner. I had tacos.

Since flying into Copenhagen on my way to Holland I’ve felt ashamed. I have a Masters Degree in Geography, have taught the subject for nearly 20 years and while I knew the capitol of Denmark was Copenhagen, I had no clue that 1) Denmark had a bunch of islands

…and since I have I’ve done most of the obligatory touristy things, and since I’m staying with family I can do things like… go grocery shopping.

Grocery shopping in another country is only mildly more interesting than shopping at home but intriguing enough. It’s nerdy fun looking at the same, yet different, foods as well as coming across familiar products like Coke in different sizes. Like I said, mildly more interesting.

After the neighborhood grocery we went to a COSTCOish type store that my brother said was more of a restaurant supply place, now THAT was more intriguing. They had plates made out of wheat…

…jars of weenies…

…large containers of sardines(?), anchovies(?)…

…and United States beef…from the Frozen Butcher? Produced below zero degrees?

Why is production at that temperature important?

The remainder of my afternoon was spent walking to and wandering through Utrecht’s old city center, window shopping, taking a few photos and having a beer in a cafe with the proprietor and his cat. Speaking of cats, I call this one Fuzzy.

Fuzzy because I saw him sitting comfortably in this tranquil, if chilly, space, thought it’d make a good photo, then as I knelt to get a better angle he got up to say, “Hi.” I had to snap the photo quickly, thus Fuzzy.